Board Game Arena

As somewhat of a Francophile, I must say that it was one of the small mercies of WWII that Paris didn't suffer as much destruction as London, Berlin or Warsaw. Still, it didn't surrender without bloodshed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_of_Paris

Join Wiking44 (once again filling in for Edocentric) and me, as we take a look at this scenario from the base game. Comments and personal insights are, as always, welcome.

Link to game:
https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=93247714;

This is honestly one of the tougher maps of the base game. It took me a while to come to like it, as I often played both sides too aggressively - leaving me either victorious or dead by turn 3 or 4...
Lately I've come to play it much more carefully - sneaking about the woods before engaging weakened units.
One of the strange things about this map is that the medals for taking Paris are permanent... This makes a card like BEHIND ENEMY LINES extremely powerful - and also leaves the Germans with more problems than they can usually handle.
If I were to change a single thing about this scenario, it would be that. Make the medals temporary.


My starting hand as the Germans wasn't too bad, I had PROBE left, 2 times ASSAULT center, and DIG IN.

I instantly lost 1 of my infantry guarding my right flank - and since I had nothing to move the remaining infantry and 2 Armor units with, I was fearing a quick rout. Luckily I picked up ASSAULT right, in round two - but as soon as I had my units safely in cover of the woods, my two Armor units got hit with AIR POWER, leaving one with 1 figure and one unscathed, but out in the open from a flag.

Things just didn't seem to be going my way, so I decided to get as many medals as I could, from my weak position. Using my last ASSAULT center, I moved out to get one or maybe two medals before Wiking would waltz into Paris. Instead my attack resulted complete disaster and Wiking took round one 5-1. But, and this turned out to be important later, I had managed to kill quite a few figures here and there, just not the units entirely.

After that beating - I had to find a way to keep Wiking from killing anything. Which meant immediately getting my exposed units on the left Flank into cover.
I started with RECON, PROBE and ATTACK center, MOVE OUT, and... the winning card of round 2: DIG IN.

A quick aside on DIG IN in this match. Not only did it save my exposed infantry from direct fire, it also made Wiking chose to target my Armor more often than the infantry throughout the match. It won't save your infantry from sustained fire, but it will make your opponent think twice before rolling up with his precious panzers, even when there's only 2 figures left.

Wiking played a RECON and discarded BARRAGE (!) making me very worried. That smacked of offensive plans.
I tried to nipple at his defenses with a RECON IN FORCE I had picked up, but it didn't do much.
Sensing my desperation, and possibly a little overconfident with his 5-1 lead, Wiking came at me already in his second move. Positioning one Panzer in the far right woods, and rolling up with the other.
My Armor got hit two times in a row - both times with a hit and a flag, forcing me into a no retreat situation of my own making. But Wiking then rolled 3 infantry leaving my Armor at 1 figure and able to retreat to the center in my next move.

But Wiking then revealed what card he had kept instead of BARRAGE - FIREFIGHT. He quickly destroyed an Armor unit- and ended my hopes of a 5-0 win.
Luckily I dodged 2 dice on my 1 figure Armor I had retreated.
So - now I had to win on kills, which also meant that couldn't just take medals willy nilly, I had to make sure I was ahead on kills. I played ARMOR ASSAULT, got some lucky kills, and the game was now much closer than before, because I was ahead on figures destroyed.

At this point, the targeting of my armor instead of my infantry, snugly hiding behind their sand bags, became important, as Wiking seemed only capable of rolling Infantry and Stars. Very pretty, but not very helpful for him.

In the end I had another lucky escape for one of my armor units cornered - but it lived through 6 dice before I took the second round 5-1 and won on kills.

Very, very close.

Thanks to Wiking44 for playing!